I spoke with someone recently about the much contested Children’s Crusade, whether it took place, whether the participants were children, whether they stopped at the Red Sea and got into boats subsequently drowning, or waded in. Out of the debate, which is an interesting but distressing read, it is clear that at some point in the early 1200’s bands of poor designated as “pueri” (Latin pl for boys)– with the colloquial meaning of wayward youth (an appellation that could have been applied to adults as well as the wandering poor as a class)– did come together in medieval Christian fervor to march to Jerusalem, and in a second wave tried to get over the Alps to see the Pope and then back again, many of them dying in both cases. For a great take on this confusing bit of history, click here.

My immediate reaction, having not thought about all of this in many years and simplistic though it may be: where the f…. were the parents?

I’m having the same reaction over my discovery of something many other people already know about, the southern Italian youth movement Amazzatecci Tutti— Kill Us All.

AT has come into being in reaction to the tyranny of the ‘Ndragheta, the Calabrian Mafia that has overcome the southernmost region of the country in recent years.

Why has it been up to the young people of Italy, first in the region of Calabria where the ‘ndragheta makes its home, to take up this fight? Where are the parents.

Prior to the inception of AT, the parents had at the very least, given up on themselves and their country…and their children’s future.

I had been writing a spin-off of my memoir Nightfall in Verona, when I ran across accounts of the region’s turmoil in the years since my romantic weeks in the town of Reggio Calabria. For the past week I’ve been reading and reading, translating polemical passages by the fertile populist/activist coalition La Rete per la Calabria— which Google will also try to translate when you go to the group’s blog– and yesterday, I read the January 2010 speech by Rosanna Scolpitelli, head of AT, about her father, Judge Antonio Scolpitelli, who was gunned down by hitmen on the order of Cosa Nostra on the eve of a decision in Italy’s biggest anti-Mafia trial, the Maxi-Trial, in 1996.

Rosanna was seven when her father was shot. She is unafraid to poetically articulate her grief (in re this speech, Google translate does a passable job) in front of thousands of people. Her commitment to the Resistance and the commitment she has inspired among Italian young people is mind-blowing.

The original seven teenagers, standing in the Reggio strada.

When I look at photographs of children– teenagers– marching in the streets carrying a banner that reads Adesso, Ammazzateci Tutti– So Go Ahead, Kill Us All– something is stirred deep within me– terrible sorrow and fear over the darkness in the world.

There is no greater darkness than the black hearts and souls of the Mob bosses with their “omorta”– Code of Silence, and the barbaric, byzantine Code of Honour which has meant the deaths of many Italian women.

In May populist outrage over the Italian government’s indifference to the chokehold of the regional Mafias spilled into the streets of Milan 100,000 strong. Past time. Thanks to Robert Saviano’s expose of the Camorra, the Naples Mob, in his memoir Gamorrah, worldwide awareness of Italy’s impotence where the Mob is concerned has been elevated to a degree, perhaps motivating the government to a minor extent to date. Saviano, living under police protection Somewhere, blogs at the Huff Post.

It all makes me feel that I don’t have any real problems despite my confessions and complaints on this blog and that our problems are minor compared to living with such a direct and entrenched threat of violence. Our children are not taking to the streets because adults won’t step up; we don’t live in the degree of poverty seen among the African migrant workers under Mafia lash in Rosarno or among the people too poor to move or leave left in Calabria.

The first manifestation of the embryonic Movement came in Locri (Calabria) on October 19, 2005, on the occasion of the funeral of the Honorable Francesco Fortugno, when the first nucelus of seven boys came together carrying the banner “E adesso ammazzateci tutti”– And So Then, Kill Us All….

Subsequently at the great populist demonstration of November 4 in Locri in which another 15,000 participated, key objectives and events were set forth and put on line on the website that in one month registered more than 200,000 contacts.

Since March 2006, the Movement has been promoting a bill (lying in the Parliament since 1992) on three key points:
the prohibition of electioneering by someone under surveillance/suspicion. Secondly that it become unthinkable that in Italy the mafia might lose the right to vote but can affect elections by backing its candidates. That the Ddl (bill) insure,when complicity between the mafia and an elected candidate, that official’s career is over.

On March 24 2006 The Movement convened a public assembly in Locri where it invited all of the candidates to sign a pact of support for the bill in the event of their election. Over 50 candidates signed this document. Subsequently another 150 deptuties and 50 senators have signed.

On June 2 2006 AT organized a conference on the rule of law at the Al Valantain Restaurant in San Viovanni– the restaurant was forced to closed after innumerable attacks, threats of extortion and deth and the owners, the Maza family were forced to emigrate abroad to save their lives.

The Group’s fiats continue in English:

Earlier in 2006 AT and other organizations and individuals formed La Rete per la Calabria– a coalition of anti-Mafia groups and individuals. The blog La Rete provides updates on the war against the ‘NDragheta and other Mafia organizations.

On the 17th February, 2006, “Ammazzateci Tutti” convened a demonstration called “ Mafia: permission denied”; over 5,000 kids from all over the “boot” took to the streets of Reggio Calabria (where they could easily have been gunned down). Judge Paolo Borsellino: “If the youth refuse their consent, even the almighty and mysterious Mafia will vanish like a nightmare.”

This event saw the participation of family members of victims of the ‘Ndrangheta and Cosa Nostra together with mothers of children victims of “Lupara Bianca” ( a missing murder victim, killed without a trace of evidence).

On the 30th May 2007, “Ammazzateci Tutti” stepped it up with its own “amicus brief,” submitting a formal request in a civil trial against the alleged instigators and executors of the murder of Fortugno. The movement is the only “non-institutional” group to have done this, working with the Region of Calabria, the Province of Reggio Calabria and the town of Locri.
The national meeting “Legalitàlia”

On the 9-11 August 2007, at the sixteenth anniversary of the murder of the Judge Antonino Scopelliti, “Ammazzateci Tutti” together with the “Antonino Scopelliti Foundation” promoted and organized in Reggio Calabria “Legalitàlia”, the first national meeting of young anti-Mafia, hosting in Reggio Calabria before an audience of nearly 300 young delegates from associations and youth movements some of the greatest Italian and Italian Mafia experts, including journalists, lawyers and social workers.

The second edition of the meeting was held in Reggio Calabria on the 8-10 August 2008.

The third edition of the meeting (Reggio Calabria, 9-10 August 2009) saw the participation of important international guests, such as the Consul General of the United States Patrick Truhn.

Among the many initiatives promoted and organized by “Ammazzateci Tutti” most notable are those in memory of the Judge Giovanni Falcone, organized every year on 23rd of May in various Italian regions and “Regional days of legality “, promoted on a national scale thanks to the coordination of regional and provincial movements.

“Ammazzateci Tutti” today

Currently the Movement promotes a number of legislative actions in the fight against organized crime, such as the acceleration of Mafia trials, constantly risking the unthinkable. AT is a national anti-Mafia movement with peripheral coordination in Calabria, Sicily, Lazio, Lombardy, Veneto and Puglia.”

Is there any possible doubt that these are amazing kids whose actions constitute a worldwide mandate to wake up and fight tyranny on every hand?

Reading about the organization and working with the very rough translation on the site, I am humbled by the commitment of these young people.. You would have to have a heart of stone to gun down children but as we all know, it happens every day, all over the world, in the wars we sustain in Afghanistan and Iraq and in other parts of the world where a nation’s sons and daughters are “collateral damage”.

Out of all of this I have found myself incorporating Amazzatecci Tutti into my novella, with the ROS– the anti-Mafia arm of the Italian Carbinieri although I have many doubts about the integrity and efficacy of the ROS. My character has been radicalized by what she has witnessed, and through her, I can do something that might bring hope and meaning into a few lives down the line– who knows.

The death of poet and blogger Alan Sullivan yesterday, leaving his translation of the King David Psalms from the Hebrew unfinished to his own satisfaction, brings home the fact that those of us who care about the world should do something today rather than leaving it for tomorrow.

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6 thoughts on “‘Ness Un’ Deve Dormire… No One Should Sleep…”

I think your decision to incorporate this kind of material into your novella is brilliant. Your post reads like a very good feature news article.

I would pick a bone with you about there not being any “true problems” in the U.S.: There is still a great deal of discrimination and prejudice; our Native Americans live in poverty to our eternal shame; homelessness remains an issue for someone else to deal with; and we put up with entirely too much lying on the part of institutions created for our “benefit”.

I don’t in the least minimize the situation in Italy; it’s despicable. So are circumstances in Iran where women can stilled be sentenced to death by stoning; in Thailand where children are trafficked; and so much more. . . so much inhumanity and ugliness in our world that I frequently despair, until I come across such acts as I sometimes write about on my site. Those young people in Italy give me hope, because they seem to understand that what it takes to root out and crush the tyranny are people committed and willing to stand together.

Of course, you’re right. I meant it simply as a statement of “compared to…. ” Of course we have the very difficulties you name and others as well– and parallel situations elsewhere in the world. I was so utterly startled by the name of the group and then when I saw the extent to which these young people put themselves on the line every day, I was astounded. You have inspired me to post something like this– a bit of journalism, I guess, as opposed to constantly writing about me, and memoir; thanks so very much, M, for stopping by and reading it. xxxj

Please visit award-winning, published writer Jenne’ Andrews ‘ new WordPress blog at http://www.loquaciouslyyours.com . Click the “comment” link at the bottom of any post, and sign up to receive an e-mail flash of new content.

I confess to not knowing a thing about this and am indebted to you for educating me. It is inspiring what they are doing, and I hope that they are successful. The mafia won’t leave without a fight, but I pray that good will triumph over evil. I agree with Maureen that incorporating this into your novella is brilliant!

Please visit award-winning, published writer Jenne’ Andrews ‘ new WordPress blog at http://www.loquaciouslyyours.com . Click the “comment” link at the bottom of any post, and sign up to receive an e-mail flash of new content.